This application claims the priority of Korean Patent Application No. 2003-63407, filed on Sep. 9, 2003, in the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein in its entirety by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a disc interface system, and more particularly, to a disc interface system that may interface a personal computer with a CD-ROM drive and/or a hard disc drive.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a conventional disc interface system 100 which may include a disc interface 120. Referring to FIG. 1, the conventional disc interface system 100 may include a computer 110, a disc interface 120 which may include a physical layer unit 121 and a digital unit 123, and a back-up device 130 which may operate a hard disc and/or CD-ROM. The computer 110 and disc interface 120 may exchange data in the form of a differential signal at 1.5 Gbps through serial lines. In the disc interface 120, data may be transmitted and received at a rate of greater than 150 Mbps between the physical layer unit 121 and digital unit 123. Between the digital unit 123 and back-up device 130, data may be transmitted and received at a rate of approximately 133 Mbps. The physical layer unit 121 may be an analog circuit and the digital unit 123 may perform data conversion and transmission according to a link and/or an Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) Interface standard (for example, the Advanced Technology Attachment (ATA) standard).
The digital unit 123 of a chip (for example, an integrated circuit chip), which may correspond to the disc interface 120 may not be tested at the actual operation speed because there may be no digital circuit test apparatus capable of testing the digital circuit at a speed of greater than 150 Mbps. If such test apparatus exists, the test apparatus may be difficult to utilize because the apparatus may only test mounted digital circuits, and/or may not be cost-effective. The digital unit 123 of the chip (for example, an integrated circuit chip), which may correspond to the disc interface 120, may be tested at an operation speed lower than the actual operation speed, however, erroneous operations of the circuit, which may be generated at the actual operation speed, may not be detected and undetected defects of the disc interface may remain.
The apparatus for testing the digital unit 123 of the disc interface 120, which may support a hard disk interface standard (for example, Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA)), may transmit data which may be in the form of a differential, Tx, and/or Rx signal which may be input and or output to the computer 110 at 1.5 Mbps. The apparatus may also be able to probe signals which may be transmitted between the physical layer unit 121 and digital unit 123 through at least ten pins at greater than 150 MHz.
In the related art the physical layer unit 121 and digital unit 123 may be separately tested. The method may require pins which may send signals, which may have been transmitted between the physical layer unit 121 and digital unit 123, to the outside of a chip. Delay characteristics of the pins and/or a probe tip may make probing signals of 150 MHz or higher difficult, and thus it may be impossible to separately test the digital unit 123 at an actual operation speed.